Australian Hauntings: A Second Anthology of Australian Colonial Supernatural Fiction (7 page)

“I left Sydney and started up country, as I had another cattle-droving job from O’Hooligan’s on the Tarcoo. I should have a chance of seeing to poor Tom’s grave, and, strange to say, it had been arranged for me to take delivery of O’Hooligan’s cattle at Bylo, the very place where the whole unfortunate affair had happened.

“This new duty was much more satisfactory in detail, to my mind. Four hundred prime fat cattle for the Adelaide market. It paid better, but took a long time on the road. But there is not the anxiety, if the season is good, that one experiences with ‘stores’. I had two of my best men with me, and would have to purchase an American waggon and a pair of horses.

“The three of us made Belala, on the Gunyahgo, and we were lucky enough to complete our purchase of waggon and horses there.

“I found, on arrival, a letter awaiting me from Harper of Fassifern, asking me as a favour to travel fifty merino rams, very valuable animals out of the Belala stud flock, from thence to his place, Fassifern, on the head waters of the Tarcoo, the next station but one from O’Hooligan’s. Luckily, I had plenty of time to spare. It had been a dry season, but all my horses were in good order.

“One of the Fassifern black boys had ridden in with the letter. His name was ‘Boro’. I sent the wagon with my head cattleman down the Gunyahgo and across from Brandyville to Bylo, to await O’Hooligan’s draft. I had a clear fortnight, and I didn’t want to disoblige Harper, as he had drafts of cattle in prospect from Fassifern, and he always gave me a job of droving when he could.

“So I accepted the rams willingly enough, the more especially as, after having delivered them safely at Fassifern, I could go down the Tarcoo to Bylo, see O’Hooligan on the way for final instructions, take over the cattle, and make a fair start from Bylo. Also there was the welcome prospect of putting a few more pounds into my pocket.”

“Always there or thereabouts when ‘dibs’ are served out!” muttered Jemmy from his corner.

“Ma certie, ye heathen, a thocht ye were deid,” snapped McIlwaine
en parenthèse
, and went on.

“I took the Fassifern black boy, ‘Boro,’ with me of course. He might just as well work for his ‘tucker’ instead of crawling back, and stopping a night or two at the blacks’ camp. That was the worst bit of work I did on the trip.

“I thought he might be useful tracking in case of mishap, as the rams were worth over £1000. Well, this black boy, ‘Boro,’ I did not cotton t
o. He was all a ‘waddygalo,’ but a ‘waddygalo’ of the worst tribe—Eepai. You can pick out ‘Combo,’ ‘Eepai,’ ‘Murral,’ and ‘Cubbai’. They have the same types of face, that is to say, a ‘Combo’ resembles a ‘Combo,’ a ‘Murrai’ a ‘Murrai,’ and so on; but a ‘Combo’ is the best of all for physique and good intentions. If an ‘Eepai’ learns anything it is roguery or devildom.

“But with regard to this ‘Eepai’—‘Boro’—I reckoned I would smarten him up a bit before I had done with him.

“He needed it. One boot, one spur, about a yard of torn blanket for his ‘swag,’ no shirt, a fearful and wonderful hat with no top to it.

“You know the way some of these ‘myalls’ ride. So did ‘Boro’; one big toe on one side of the stirrup iron—the inside—next toe on the other, and the foot and all the other toes outside; the one boot thrust well home into the opposite iron. Doesn’t look pretty. But then old Harper never did have any ideas about black fellows, never kept them neat and tidy, never had them properly clothed. If one doesn’t keep some sort of hold on these ‘nigs’, and train them properly, they never will be fit to be seen. I’m particular about it, but the untidiness is in them, and therefore, if you don’t keep a good look out on a trained ‘nig’, he will disgrace your teaching if he gets a chance. Why, one of my own boys, ‘Tommy,’ a Tarcoo black, about fifteen, broke out on one occasion—lapsed into savagery, as I should term it. I got him from his mother. She was old Biddy from the station camp. It was my first trip with him and he’s all right now.

“I was in at Brandyville. Tommy was in charge of my horses. Used to run them up to the town stockyard every morning. I had him nice and neat, riding-breeches and boots, cabbage-tree hat, spurs regular, not one-sided, and a very nice little darkie he looked. Hair properly dressed by the barber, too. He got his meals at the hotel and a small glass of ale with his dinner. He preferred to sleep, however, the first night, at the blacks’ camp without my leave.

“Next morning up he comes at breakfast time. ‘Horses all right, Tommy?’ ‘Yowi’ (yes). He had someone else’s hat and shirt on—nothing else. Positively indecent. Dirty too. Hair anyway. Face all over wood-ash.

“‘Where are your breeches, Tommy?’ ‘Mine been break him trous belongin’ to mine!’ Quite a new state of things. The little brute was entirely demoralised. Never had any morals until I took the trouble to instil them. This wouldn’t do. Was I to go about the country with a nigger in this untidy state? Certainly not. ‘Whose hat and shirt have you got on now, Tommy?’ ‘Nother pfeller, black pfeller, Charlie, cousin belongin’ to mine.’ ‘Where are your
own
clothes?’ ‘Mine been give ’em alonga ’nother pfeller, black pfeller!’

“Tableau! ‘
Give
’em away.’ The suit had cost me about three guineas, and the cabbage-tree hat another ten-and-sixpence, to say nothing of the spurs and boots. But you know their horribly irresponsible style, and how it riles one.

“I took him straight down to the blacks’ camp by the car, and demanded instant reparation, under a threat to the old chief that, unless he complied with my wishes immediately, I should ‘yabber alonga policeman’. That ‘fetched’ him!

“He collared half a dozen youngsters, and brought them up, yelling fit to wake the dead. One had had Tommy’s hat, another his boots, and another his spurs, at one time or another, but had halved or given away the articles to others, every one of the kids wishing to wear something belonging to my black boy.

“So these young ‘nigs’ were sent to collar the others, and a furious hullabaloo then took place, mixed, with chivies round the gunyahs, over and through the fires, and in and out of the creek; and it wasn’t until we had collared every kid in camp, with the assistance of old Jimmy and his harem, that we found the missing articles—a boot on one, a spur on another, and so on. I don’t know whether they thought I should be willing to take Tommy out of the town in a state of nudity or not, or whether I should just get him some more outfits, until I had clothed the lot of them, but my determined move euchred them all together. So I made Master Tommy put on his duds one by one, ’til he arrived at hat and boots, with a circle of worshippers round him, telling the frightened youngsters that if I caught them again dividing my black boy’s raiment amongst them I should have them all hung by the policeman on the big windmill at the town stockyard, concluding:

‘Then you baal jump up white fellow, hang alonga sky, wokkaratchies (crows) eat ’em up.’

“You never saw such a scare. And old Jimmy, the chief, quite believed it, and yabbered and howled like blazes to all the ‘gins’ within a quarter of a mile. Then they began to bring in the rest of the missing articles, but two little wretches had torn Tommy’s good Crimean shirt in half to make, as they explained after much browbeating and threatening, ‘two little pfeller blankit’. And one of the junior members of Jimmy’s seraglio appeared with the collar worn as a necklet. That collar was her sole apparel. However, things simmered down after a bit, and I gave old Jimmy half a stick of Barrett’s twist, and bought Tommy another shirt. I made him sleep in an outhouse near the stable in the back-yard after this, but one morning early I caught two other urchins ‘coiled’ with him, the whole lot under his blanket. They were also ‘cousins,’ and had arranged to work with him in relation to the horses, hoping, I have no doubt, to get stray bits from the breakfast that my lord did not want himself.

“But it ended in these two others having a separate ‘mess,’ which I paid for. The hot tea with their breakfasts must have comforted their small ‘tums,’ and I never like to put obstacles in the way of praiseworthy energy. So Tommy slept warmer at night, and I was the richer by two first-class trackers.

“Eventually I took these boys with me, and they turned out well, and were very useful. And my boy, Tommy, never dared to speculate after this with his clothes. Everything depends upon how you bring them up.

“But, as I was saying before my digression, this boy, ‘Boro,’ of Harper’s, was to come with us, and I did not like the look of him one little bit. He was a holy terror of uncleanness and carelessness.

“We left the Gunyaligo with the rams, and I meant to cross the dividing range with them, straight to Fassifern, steering about north-north-east by the sun.

“Mick Brady was my white man, a regular old stodger with cattle, slow, but sure and steady, well up to every wrinkle on the roads.

“He had been with me for years. We made a creek the first night, and I camped the rams successfully by a big ‘waterhole’. Mick had his old one-eyed cattle dog, ‘Bally,’ with him, and I had ‘Joker,’ who had taken to me wonderfully. We had about fifty miles to make from this water-hole to Fassifern, and a long stage next day of fifteen miles. Next day proved to be very hot, and we made slow progress. At noon we let the sheep ‘camp’ as usual. I made sure of finding good water over the range at a place I knew of, or I never should have taken this route, but it was a straight track of my own from Belala to Fassifern.

“I let the rams have a good rest and feed, intending to take them on to the water during the night if necessary.

“‘Boro’ had our water on the packhorse, and I tell you both Mick and I needed a drink badly at mid-day. We had four big waterbags. The horses felt the heat too, and they just got a ‘washout’—a mouthful apiece. We started on again at about four o’clock in the afternoon, ten miles to go to water. We kept on ’til dark and camped again four miles farther on. It was the middle of summer, and a horrible sort of haze had set in which would obscure the moon. There would not be much of that luminary in any case, only about a third of the night, but I had calculated on it. As we rounded the rams on to a nice dry ‘rise’ to ‘camp’ for the night, I missed ‘Boro’.

“Just before we had rounded up we had passed a low spur of the range we had to cross. I had seen him there last, but what with being absorbed with my reflections about poor Tom Imrie’s case, and upon my own business, I had given little thought to him. Mick, of course, had been actively employed in heading the sheep in the right direction, and had had his eyes on the flock.

“Well, we lit a fire and sat there waiting for the young brute to come up, so that we could get enough water for our tea to boil the ‘billy’. Not a sign of him an hour after, and I began to get uneasy.

“From thinking he had been delayed in cutting a ‘possum’ out, a conviction was formed that he must have met with an accident. Old ‘Chockaroo,’ the packhorse, was a demon to kick if anything went wrong with the ‘swag’ on his back, and, for all I knew, he might have kicked ‘Boro’s’ head off also. So I told my ideas to Mick, got my horse, which was hobbled, and started to where I had last seen him. Not a sign of him! And the sky got so cloudy, that it very soon got too dark to do anything. So I found my way back to camp. Here we were, in a pretty pickle, no water, and both of us very thirsty.

“Nothing could be done ’til daylight. The sky was now completely overcast, with a sort of cottony-woolly haze, which looked as if it meant another blazing hot day on the morrow.

“I resolved to hang it out. About six miles more would do it.

“So we two got a small round pebble apiece, rolling them round in our mouths to increase the flow of saliva. And all that blessed night we didn’t get a show to move, and it would have been just madness to attempt a start, for you couldn’t see the sheep fifteen yards off, and as to where your horse would go to it would be impossible to judge. My eye, it was a weary watch.

“To make matters worse, Mick’s horse smashed his hobbles, and, of course, made back straight to the last water. I just managed to catch mine, as I heard the row.

“Mick’s horse must have come a cropper by getting his hobbles across the stump of an old burnt mulga tree. I shouldn’t have caught ‘Black Jack’ if I hadn’t run full butt into him, and he would have been sure to have followed Mick’s horse. It was black dark ’til the moon rose, but that made very little difference.

“I took the precaution to put a halter on ‘Black Jack’ and tie him to a tree, hobbles and all. I couldn’t afford to lose him. However, I got him a big heap of mulga boughs, and made him as comfortable as circumstances would allow, but the poor old chap wanted a drink as much as I did, and didn’t bother about eating.

“Morning broke dull and cloudy. I had had plenty of time to think over my plans, and determined not to be beat. I would try and find ‘Boro’ and the water-bags, and then come back on my tracks and join Mick. I might find ‘Boro’ and I mightn’t. The horses, if loose, would be sure to make back to the last water. If I had had anything to carry water in, I would have gone on to the other side of the range, and brought some water to Mick, but all our belongings were on the packhorse.

“The young blackguard had evidently bolted. He had probably ridden well clear, and then jumped off and let the ‘yarramen’ go. I knew he daren’t turn up at either Belala or Fassifern on horseback without us. Well, I came to the place where Mick’s track and mine of yesterday were going to camp. A little farther on I got the two others. ‘Boro’s’ horses, ridden, I could see that. If he had been off their backs they would have been apart more than the half length of the head-stall rope. Of course I had given instructions to Mick to keep steadily on; he knew the way ‘Boro’s’ horses’ tracks swerved off our direction of yesterday, then towards the range, and then up and over the first hill. He was probably making towards some blacks’ camp. When he knew the country he would let them go—having dismounted—and probably by this time they would be back at Belala. Well, if they were, they would be sent on from the station, and some one with them to see what was the matter with us.